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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 63, NO. 8, AUGUST 2015

Dielectric Phase-Correcting Structures for

Electromagnetic Band Gap Resonator Antennas
Muhammad U. Afzal, Student Member, IEEE, Karu P. Esselle, Senior Member, IEEE,
and Basit A. Zeb, Member, IEEE

AbstractA novel technique to design a phase-correcting structure (PCS) for an electromagnetic band gap (EBG) resonator
antenna (ERA) is presented. The aperture field of a classical
ERA has a significantly nonuniform phase distribution, which
adversely affects its radiation characteristics. An all-dielectric
PCS was designed to transform such a phase distribution to a
nearly uniform phase distribution. A prototype designed using
proposed technique was fabricated and tested to verify proposed
methodology and to validate predicted results. A very good agreement between the predicted and the measured results is noted.
Significant increase in antenna performance has been achieved
due to this phase correction, including 9-dB improvement in
antenna directivity (from 12.3 dBi to 21.6 dBi), lower side lobes,
higher gain, and better aperture efficiency. The phase-corrected
antenna has a 3-dB directivity bandwidth of 8%.
Index TermsAperture field, cavity resonator, directivity
enhancement, electromagnetic band gap (EBG) resonator antenna
(ERA), FabryPerot resonator, frequency-selective surface (FSS),
high-gain, patch antennas, phase correction, phase shifting surface
(PSS), resonant cavity antenna.

I. I NTRODUCTION

LECTROMAGNETIC band gap (EBG) resonator antennas (ERAs) have been widely investigated in the past
due to their simple feed mechanisms, planar configurations,
and highly directive radiation patterns [1][3]. Owing to these
promising features, they are considered as possible replacements for some high-gain antennas such as arrays and reflectors
[4][6]. ERAs, also known as FabryPerot resonator antennas,
resonant cavity antennas, or two-dimensional (2-D) leaky-wave
antennas, consist of a feed source placed in a cavity formed
between a ground plane and a partially reflecting superstructure (PRS) [7][12]. The PRS is usually a 1-D [13][15],
2-D [16], [17], or three-dimensional (3-D) [18][20] periodic
structure. Nevertheless, our recent investigations revealed that
aperture electric fields of many ERAs have nonuniform phase
distributions, which reduce the effective radiation aperture and
result in lower peak directivity and higher side-lobe levels.
This led to the hypothesis that a phase correction technique

Manuscript received October 16, 2014; revised December 14, 2014; accepted
January 05, 2015. Date of publication June 01, 2015; date of current version
July 31, 2015. This work was supported by the Australian Government under
the AustraliaIndia Strategic Research Fund, and the International Macquarie
University Research Excellence Scholarship (iMQRES) scheme.
The authors are with the Department of Electronic Engineering,
Macquarie University, Sydney 2109, N.S.W., Australia (e-mail: muhammad.
afzal@mq.edu.au).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2015.2438332

can be developed to improve the overall performance of these

antennas.
Traditionally, phase correction has been implemented using
dielectric plano-hyperbolic lenses (DPHL), Fresnel lenses, and
Fresnel zone plates [21], [22]. Later, printed planar lenses
have been proposed as a replacement for their dielectric
counterparts [23], [24]. Dielectric planar lenses were created
by varying the permittivity of the material [25], [26]. More
recently, low-profile planar lenses have also been designed
using phase-shifting surfaces (PSSs) [27], [28]. A PSS is basically a frequency-selective surface (FSS) designed to have a
specific transmission phase profile. In the subsequent discussions, such printed phase correction surfaces will be referred
to as PSS-lenses, whereas dielectric-based structures (i.e.,
DPHL and zone plates) will be referred to as dielectric
lenses.
The design principle of both dielectric and PSS-lenses has
been derived from optical ray theory in which a feed antenna is
approximated by a point source located at the focal point of the
lens. The focal length to diameter ratio F/D is typically set to 0.5
to achieve the maximum utilization of the lens aperture [29]. On
the other hand, for an ERA, such a point source approximation
is not applicable due to the resonance and multiple reflections in
the cavity. This is a challenge, which is addressed in this paper.
It is perhaps due to this reason that no attempt has yet been
made to correct the phase distribution of an ERA by modifying
its transmission phase.
In this paper, a novel technique to design a phase-correcting
structure (PCS) for an ERA is presented. This technique makes
use of full-wave electromagnetic simulations to determine
phase error of the electric field leaving the ERA, rather than
ray optics previously used for lens designs. The main objective, here, is to improve the performance of a classical ERA by
correcting its aperture phase distribution. The same can also be
achieved by improving the amplitude distribution [30], but it is
beyond the scope of this paper.
This paper is organized as follows. In Section II, the configuration of the proposed PCS and a typical ERA is discussed
along with the design principle of a lens and the PCS. The theoretical analysis of the proposed PCS is given in Section III.
This analysis is then used to design a PCS for an ERA.
The details of the designing process are in the first part of
Section IV, whereas in the second part, key performance parameter and aperture phase distributions of ERAs are compared,
with and without PCS. Then, in Section V, measured results of
a fabricated prototype are presented along with discussion on

0018-926X 2015 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.

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Fig. 2. 2-D grid created at the PCS-P to discretize the physical aperture of the
ERA (X = Y = 60 ).

Fig. 1. (a) Proposed configuration of an ERA with a PCS. (b) Configuration

of a typical lens antenna, with feed antenna at focal point of the lens. Rays
originating from the antenna are used to determine phase error at lens input.

critical parameters of the design. Finally, this paper is closed

with a brief conclusion in Section VI.
II. A LL -D IELECTRIC PCS
Fig. 1(a) shows the proposed configuration of an ERA with
a PCS. A typical ERA employs one low-directivity antenna as
the feed antenna. The example ERA considered here consists
of a simple probe-fed microstrip patch, printed on a grounded
dielectric substrate, and an unprinted PRS. A resonant cavity is
formed between the ground plane and the PRS, and its height
(h1 ) is close to 0 /2 [11], [31], [32], where 0 is the free-space
wavelength at the design frequency. The PCS is placed at a
distance of h2 from the PRS. Its plane, shown in Fig. 1(a), is
referred to as PCS-plane (PCS-P) hereafter. Fig. 1(b) illustrates
how a lens (planar, nonplanar, dielectric, or printed) converts
the spherical wavefront radiated by an antenna, located at its
focal point, into a planar wavefront at its output. The rays passing through edges will incur more delay in the air path, as
compared to the those passing through the center of the lens.
This extra delay is compensated by the lens.
Such a ray model cannot be used to estimate the phase
error of an ERA due to the existence of an infinite number of
rays bounced back and forth between the PRS and the ground

plane as a result of cavity resonance. A PCS is introduced to

transform the nonuniform phase distribution at PCS-P (i.e., output of ERA and input of PCS) into a nearly uniform phase
distribution at PCS output. This phase correction is required for
all the bounced rays leaving the aperture in contrast to traditional lenses where phase correction requires consideration of
well-defined rays originating from the focal point. It is for this
reason that a full-wave simulation was used here to determine
the phase errors at PCS-P, instead of ray models.
The phase of the electric field was recorded at discrete points
on the physical aperture at PCS-P. To do so, a 2-D aperture grid
containing NN unit cells (UCs), shown in Fig. 2, was considered. Each distinct box of the grid is referred to as a UC and
has a unique identity (x, y) based on its location in the coordinate system. The phase of the electric field at the center of
each UC (x, y) was recorded and hence phase errors at PCS
input was determined. Then the PCS was designed to produce
uniform phase at its output, as detailed in the next section. The
UC size (x, y) is critical, as making it large would result in
discretization errors while making it too small would increase
fabrication complexity.
To design an all dielectric PCS, the transmission phase characteristics of dielectric material was studied. It is well known
that the phase delay of a propagating electric field in a dielectric material depends on the permittivity and thickness of the
material. Therefore, it is possible to obtain the desired phase
correction by integrating sections of dielectric materials with
different permittivities but same thickness, or vice versa. The
use of material with fixed thickness and variable permittivity
will result in a planar PCS. If permittivity of the material is fixed
and thickness is varied, a nonplanar geometry will be formed.
Considering fabrication complexity, the latter approach, i.e., a
PCS with fixed permittivity and variable thickness across its
aperture, was implemented. It is explained in detail in the next
section.

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Fig. 3. Cross-sectional view of a hypothetical PCS used for mathematical modeling. N dielectric slabs each one having a unique height to provide the required
transmission phase (for a wave propagating along the positive z-axis) at that location.

III. T HEORY OF PCS

Let us consider a hypothetical PCS with varying height,
located at the PCS-P above an ERA, as shown in Fig. 3. A
total of N dielectric sections, one for each UC, are shown in the
figure. Each section has a different height hn (n = 1, 2, . . . , N ),
which depends on the phase correction required at that particular location. The phase of the electric field radiated by the ERA
(i.e., input phase to the PCS) is recorded at PCS-P, whereas the
phase of the electric field leaving the PCS (i.e., output phase of
the PCS) is set at the reference plane (RP) to achieve a nearly
uniform phase distribution. The RP is parallel to PCS-P and
located at a distance of d from the PCS-P. The significance and
selection of d is explained in a latter section.
The phase at the PCS-P is denoted by n (n = 1, 2, . . . , N ).
It is also indicated by the arrows in Fig. 3. Each arrow has a
different length to indicate the nonuniform nature of the phase
distribution expected in this plane. The desired constant output phase of the PCS at RP is denoted by 0 . The arrows
are drawn with the same lengths to represent a nearly uniform phase expected in this plane. Therefore, the required phase
delay (T (n)) for each UC is the difference of the phase at PCSP (input) and RP (output), i.e. T (n) = n 0 . The dielectric
region with height hn and the air region with height d hn
together provide this required phase delay T (n).
To determine the actual phase delay incurred between PCS-P
and RP, let us first analyze a particular (nth) section having a
dielectric region of height hn and air region of height d hn .
The total phase delay T (hn ) is given by
T (hn ) = d (hn ) + a (d hn )

(1)

where d (hn ) and a (d hn ) are the phase delays of dielectric

and air regions, respectively.
The phase delay in the air region is simply given by
a (d hn ) = k0 (d hn )

(2)

where k0 is the wave number in free space. It is worth mentioning here that the total phase delay in the dielectric is not simply
kn hn (where kn is the wave number in dielectric) but it should
be determined by taking into consideration the multiple reflections between the dielectricair and airdielectric interfaces.
Referring to the dielectric section shown in Fig. 3 inset, this
phase is determined by calculating the ratio of the transmitted
(bn ) and incident (an ) fields [33]
 


bn
1 2
d (hn ) =
= jkn hn
an
e
(1 + 1 2 e2jkn hn )
(3)
where 1 and 1 are the intrinsic transmission and reflection
coefficients, respectively, for the first (air-to-dielectric) interface, and 2 and 2 are the intrinsic transmission and reflection
coefficients, respectively, for the second (dielectric-to-air) interface. The intrinsic reflection coefficients at the two interfaces
are given by
 



0
0 
1 =
2 =
(4)
 + 0
0 + 
where 0 and  are the intrinsic wave impedances of air and

dielectric regions, respectively (  = 0 / r , r is the relative

permittivity of the dielectric material). Similarly, the intrinsic transmission coefficients for the same two interfaces are
given by




2 
20
=
1 =

.
(5)
2
 + 0
0 + 
After simplification, the products 1 2 and 1 2 in (4) and (5)
can be expressed in terms of r



1 r 2
4 r
1 2 =
1 2 = 

2 . (6)
1 + r
1 + r

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Then, d (hn ) is obtained by substituting the expressions for

1 2 and 1 2 in (3). The result is


1 + r
bn
1
= tan
(7)
d (hn ) =
tan(kn hn ) .
an
2 r
The total phase delay T is therefore given by


1 + r
T (hn ) = tan1
tan(kn hn ) + k0 (d hn ). (8)
2 r
As expected, the total phase delay between PCS-P and RP is
a function of dielectric height (hn ), when r and d are fixed.
Hence, a database (for specific r , d and frequency) for the total
phase delay T versus the height of the dielectric section hn
can be generated. This database is then used to determine the
required dielectric height (hn ), using the required phase delay
T (n) for each UC. This point is further elaborated with an
example in the next section.
IV. D ESIGN E XAMPLE
A classic ERA (see Fig. 1) made out of single unprinted
dielectric slab is considered for this design example. The design
frequency is chosen as 11.1 GHz for the convenience of prototyping. The cavity is fed by a patch antenna printed on Rogers
UltraLam2000 slab (r1 = 2.5, t1 = 1.57 mm) while the PRS
slab is made out of Rogers TMM4 material (r2 = 4.5, t2 =
3.17 mm). Its length in each lateral direction is 162 mm (60 ).
The cavity height h1 is 13.2 mm and the PCS-P is located at a
distance (h2 ) of 7.2 mm from the dielectric slab.
The aperture grid (shown in Fig. 2) was created at PCS-P
with the cell size of x = y = 0 /3, following the suggestions in [27], [34], and [35]. Since the physical aperture of
ERA is 60 60 , a total of 324 UCs were required to discretize the complete physical aperture. The ERA was simulated
using CST Microwave Studio and its output phase ((x, y))
was recorded at the center of each UC using virtual Ey probes.
The resulting phase data was mapped on to the surface plot
shown in Fig. 4. As can be seen from Fig. 4, the phase distribution is symmetrical in both principal planes. Furthermore, it is
approximately rotationally symmetric around the center of the
aperture. If a PCS is designed to correct a rotationally symmetrical phase distribution, it will also have rotational symmetry.
Such a symmetrical PCS is highly desired as it can be used for
both circularly and linearly polarized (CP&LP) applications.
Therefore, taking advantage of this observation, rotational symmetry is enforced (without introducing significant errors) by
extending the phase of the H-plane throughout the aperture in
a circular manner as shown in Fig. 5. As a result, the PCS now
requires circular phase correcting regions, made out of concentric rings. This approximation introduced negligible errors in
most of the regions. Although error is relatively larger in some
of the outer regions, that should not affect the overall performance of the antenna because the aperture field magnitude is
significantly weaker in outer regions.
The unwrapped phase of Ey , recorded at the center of each
UC in the H-plane at PCS-P, is given in Table I. The minimum
and maximum phase values recorded were 294 and 15 ,

Fig. 4. Actual phase of the electric field (Ey ) produced by ERA, sampled on
the 2-D grid of UCs at PCS-P.

Fig. 5. Approximate phase distribution considered to design a rotationally

symmetric PCS.

respectively, which means that the PCS needs to correct an

unwrapped phase range of at least 309 . This is also clear from
the normalized phase, plotted in Fig. 6, to be used for profile generation. The desired phase 0 can be set to any value
that is less than the minimum normalized phase; hence, it was
set to 311 . The required total phase of each PCS region
(T (n) = (n) 0 ) is then calculated. Absolute values of
these are listed in Table I. They are used in the next section
for profile generation.

A. PCS Profile Generation

The PCS was designed such that it can be fabricated out
of Rexolite 1422 material available in the stock, (r3 = 2.53).

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 63, NO. 8, AUGUST 2015

TABLE I
P HASE OF E LECTRIC F IELD P RODUCED BY ERA
IN THE H-P LANE AT PCS-P

Fig. 7. Phase delays obtained from the theory in Section III for r = 2.53 and
d = 40 mm.
TABLE III
E STIMATED H EIGHT (hn ) OF E ACH R EGION FOR PCS D ESIGN I

Fig. 6. Phase of Ey produced by ERA in H-plane at PCS-P (plot is normalized

to the phase value at the center of the aperture).
TABLE II
M AXIMUM ACHIEVABLE R ANGE OF T OTAL P HASE D ELAY (T )
FOR D IFFERENT VALUES OF d

Low values of r make the PCS taller while high values increase
internal reflections from the PCS towards PRS. Hence, dielectric constants in the range 23 are desirable. PCS-P to RP
spacing (d) is critical for the design as it is the maximum permitted dielectric height. Therefore, it determines the minimum
(T (min)) and maximum (T (max)) values of total phase
delay, corresponding to hmin = 0 and hmax = d, respectively.
In other words, d controls the range of T . To find an appropriate value for d, the range of T was calculated using (8) for
several values of d. These results are summarized in Table II.
As can be seen in Table II, the phase range increases with d.
For an example, when d is 20 mm, the minimum phase delay
between PCS-P and RP is 267 , which occurs when the whole

region is filled by air i.e. hn = 0. The maximum phase delay is

427 , which occurs when the whole region is filled by dielectric i.e. hn = d. The T range for d = 20 mm is, therefore,
160 . To correct the phase distribution of the example ERA,
shown in Fig. 6, any value of d for which T range is greater
than 309 can be used. The value selected for d in this example
design is 40 mm (1.480 ). After fixing r = 2.53 and d = 40
mm, a database was generated by sweeping the dielectric height
(hn ) from zero to d. At each step of hn , values of a , d and
T were computed using (2), (7), and (8), respectively. Fig. 7
shows these phase delays versus dielectric height. The total
phase delay is also normalized so that its minimum value is
zero (for hn = 0). As the dielectric height increases, the phase
delay in air (a ) decreases and phase delay in the dielectric (d )
increases. The slope of the total phase delay (T ) line is less
than that of d . It is worth mentioning here that the selection of
d does not affect the slope of T ; it only affects the maximum
correctable phase variation.
Using the normalized T graph in Fig. 7, the required phase
delays (T ) of Table I were converted to the required dielectric heights (hn ), and the results are given in Table III. For
example, region R1 requires a total phase delay of 311 . From
normalized graph of Fig. 7, this requires a dielectric region that
is 39 mm tall. This way the profile of the first PCS design was
generated and it is given in Table III. This design (referred to

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TABLE IV
H EIGHT (hn ) OF E ACH R EGION IN PCS D ESIGN II}

Fig. 9. Comparison of the phase of Ey in the reference plane, with and without
PCS. Uniform phase region is almost doubled due to PCS.

Fig. 8. Cross-sectional view of PCS Design II. Maximum height is 1.440 =

37 mm.

as PCS Design I) could be implemented but since the maximum thickness of the available dielectric slabs was only 37 mm,
a small reduction in dielectric thickness was required. This
profile reduction is discussed below.
Note that exact phase correction is not required in outer
regions R7 R9 because aperture field magnitude in these
regions is relatively very weak. Hence, phase correction in these
regions is sacrificed to reduce the maximum dielectric thickness
of the PCS. The height of the tallest region of PCS is determined by the largest required normalized phase delay which in
PCS Design I is 311 according to Table III. To reduce the maximum thickness of the PCS, all phase delays (T ) in Table III
were reduced by 15 . As a result, maximum required dielectric thickness decreased by 2 mm. The required phase delays
and the corresponding heights of PCS Design II are given in
Table IV. Then, considering the weak field strength in regions
R7 R9 , ideal phase correction for these regions was sacrificed.
The height of these regions have been revised to meet PCS
stability and fabrication requirements and the revised heights
are also given in Table IV. The required height of R9 is made
5 mm instead of 1.45 mm, which obviously cannot be implemented. Cross-sectional view of the resulting PCS Design II
(using revised height) is shown in Fig. 8.
B. Antenna Performance With PCS
The complete antenna consisting of aforementioned ERA
and the PCS (Design II) was simulated in CST Microwave
Studio to verify the design. The cavity height of ERA (h1 )

Fig. 10. Radiation pattern showing directivity of the ERA with and without PCS.

was retuned to 14.2 mm in order to achieve good matching

at 11.1 GHz under PCS loading. The phase of Ey electric
field component in the H-plane (at RP) was recorded and it
is compared with that of the bare ERA in Fig. 9. As shown,
phase variation has been significantly reduced by the PCS.
The maximum phase variation (unwrapped) from center of
the aperture to outer edge is 90 and 520 with and without
PCS, respectively. Considering 45 (22.5 ) as the definition
for uniform-phase region, its width is 80 mm and 48 mm with
and without PCS, respectively. The increase in the area of the
nearly uniform phase region is 178%. More importantly, the
PCS has significantly improved the quality of radiation patterns,
i.e., directivity, beamwidths, and side-lobe levels, as shown in
Fig. 10. The directivity of ERA has increased by approximately
9 dB due to the phase correction while the side-lobe levels
in the E and H-planes improved by 8.2 and 1.3 dB, respectively. The 3-dB beamwidth in both E and H planes is 13.5 ,
as compared to around 37 for an ERA without the PCS. The
predicted gain at 11.1 GHz is 21.2 dBi with the PCS, corresponding to an aperture efficiency of around 29%, which is

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 63, NO. 8, AUGUST 2015

Fig. 11. Photograph of the experimental ERA with the PCS.

Fig. 12. Input reflection coefficient of the ERA with the PCS.

only 3.8% without the PCS. Despite this significant improvement, aperture efficiency of the ERA is still low because of the
large area of the PRS and the natural amplitude taper in the
aperture fields towards the edges. It is possible to improve it by
strongly truncating the PRS, as demonstrated in [36], for applications where small footprint is more important than the best
directivity. These results prove the concept, and highlight the
validity of the proposed methodology and ability of the PCS to
significantly improve the performance of a classical ERA.

Fig. 13. Measured and predicted radiation patterns at 11.1 GHz in (a) E- and
(b) H-plane.

V. M EASUREMENTS
A fabricated prototype of the PCS is shown in Fig. 11. The
ERA and the patch feed were fabricated for the parameters
given in Section IV. The measured input reflection coefficients
are shown in Fig. 12. The measured 10 dB return loss bandwidth is 14%, from 10.9 to 12.5 GHz. A good agreement
between predicted and measured results is noted.
The radiation patterns, measured in an NSI spherical nearfield range at 11.1 GHz, are shown in Fig. 13 with predicted
patterns. The measured and predicted patterns are in good
agreement. The ERA with PCS also exhibits good cross polar
performance, which is a requirement for some applications.
The measured cross-polar components in principle planes are
plotted at the design frequency in Fig. 13. Within the 3-dB
beamwidth, cross-polar component in the E-plane is at least
24 dB below the co-polar component. In the H-plane it is
even smaller, at least 37 dB below the co-polar component,

Fig. 14. Directivity and gain of the antenna with and without PCS.

within 3 dB radiation beamwidth. The measured directivity

and gain are shown in Fig. 14. The peak measured directivity of 21.6 dBi occurs at 11 GHz which is almost equal to

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3397

VI. C ONCLUSION

Fig. 15. Predicted radiation pattern of the ERA with the proposed PCS
at (a) f = 10.6 GHz, (b) f = 10.8 GHz, (c) f = 11.0 GHz, and
(d) f =11.3 GHz.

the predicted directivity. Although the PCS was designed for

single frequency, the antenna with PCS has a relatively good
(3 dB) directivity bandwidth of around 8%, from 10.5 GHz
to 11.4 GHz. Since many cavity based antennas are inherently
narrow band, this bandwidth achieved with PCS is quite encouraging. The shape of the radiation patterns does not degrade in
the said 3-dB bandwidth. Patterns at four different frequencies
within this band are shown in Fig. 15. It can be seen that at all
four frequencies, patterns are good with side lobe levels less
than 13 dB.
Although significant improvement in the performance of the
ERA was achieved with the PCS, the prototype is not ideal. The
anomalies found in results are attributed to the approximations
made in the design and practical aspects of implementation.
Approximation of the phase delay pattern, enforced to achieve
circular symmetry, is a source of error. Additionally, weak multiple reflections between the PCS and the PRS, ignored in
theoretical analysis, can also perturb the phase distribution at
PCS-P and hence degrade overall performance. Similarly, in
theoretical analysis, the transmission phase of dielectric material was determined by assuming infinite lateral dimensions
of material while in practice each section has a finite width.
Discretization of the physical aperture using UCs is another
factor that can affect the performance.
Results can be improved further by iteratively improving the
design with the objective to reduce the phase error at RP. To
implement this, phase error recorded at RP could be used as
a feedback parameter to fine tune the PCS height profile iteratively until a particular benchmark is achieved. Similarly effects
of discretization can be minimized by reducing the UC size
and then making PCS surface smooth instead of stair-cased but
it will come at the cost of increased fabrication complexity.
Like in many other engineering designs, there exists a tradeoff
between design complexity and overall performance.

A detailed methodology is presented to design a dielectric

PCS for an ERA. A classical ERA has a nonuniform field
distribution in the aperture region. Their resonant-cavity-based
operating mechanism prevents the use of traditional phase correcting techniques, which are based on ray optics. Therefore,
the ERA was simulated here to determine the phase errors
on its aperture. Then an all-dielectric PCS was designed to
transform the nonuniform phase distribution of ERA to nearly
uniform phase distribution. A prototype PCS was fabricated and
tested with a classical, single-slab ERA. Due to the PCS, performance of the ERA improved significantly. These improvements
include significant increase in gain and directivity, reduced side
lobe levels, higher aperture efficiency, and more uniform aperture phase distribution. Although the proposed phase-correcting
technique has been demonstrated for an ERA with 1-D PRS, it
is also applicable for other antennas with nonuniform aperture
phase distributions that include ERAs with 2-D printed PRSs
[37], ERAs with 3-D EBG superstructures such as woodpiles
[19], and antenna arrays.

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Muhammad U. Afzal (S13) received the B.S.

degree in electronics engineering (Hons.) and the
M.S. degree in computational science and engineering from the National University of Sciences and
Technology (NUST), Islamabad, Pakistan, in 2005
and 2011, respectively. He is currently pursuing
the Ph.D. degree at the Centre for Electromagnetic
and Antenna Engineering (CELANE), Macquarie
University, Sydney, N.S.W., Australia.
From 2010 to 2012, he was a Lab Engineer
with Samar Mubarakmand Research Institute of
Microwave and Millimeterwave Studies (SMRIMMS), Islamabad, Pakistan.
From 2012 to 2013, he was a Lecturer with the Electrical Engineering
Department, NUST. He received NUST Merit Base scholarship during undergraduate studies and International Macquarie Research Excellence Scholarship
(iMQRS) for Ph.D. studies. His research interests include electromagnetic
phase-shifting structures, frequency-selective surfaces, and similar metamaterials for microwave and millimeter-wave antenna applications.
Karu P. Esselle (M92SM96) received the B.Sc.
degree in electronics and telecommunication engineering (First Class Hons.) from the University of
Moratuwa, Moratuwa, Sri Lanka, in 1983, and the
M.A.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering
from the University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada,
in 1987 and 1990, respectively, with a nearly perfect
GPA.
He is a Professor of Engineering with Macquarie
University, Sydney, N.S.W., Australia, and the
Immediate Past Associate Dean Higher Degree
Research with the Division of Information and Communication Sciences.
He has also served as a Member of the Division Executive from 2003 to
2008 and as the Head of the Department several times including six months
from 2011 to 2012. He was an Assistant Lecturer with the University of
Moratuwa, a Canadian Government Laboratory, a Visiting Postdoctoral Fellow
at Health Canada, Ottawa, ON, Canada, a Visiting Professor at the University
of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada, Visiting Research Fellow at the University
of Western Australia, Crawley, W.A., Australia, and a Visiting Scientist at the
CSIRO ICT Centre, Marsfield, N.S.W., Australia. He is the Director of the
Centre for Electromagnetic and Antenna Engineering (CELANE), which is
in the Concentration of Research Excellence in Wireless Communications.
He leads the Implantable Wireless Program of the WiMed Research Centre
at the executive level. He has authored over 400 research publications and his
papers have been cited over 2750 times. His research interests include periodic
and electromagnetic band gap (EBG) structures including frequency-selective
surfaces and EBG resonator antennas, metamaterials, dielectric-resonator
antennas, leaky-wave antennas, ultrawideband (UWB) antennas, broadband
and multiband antennas, biomedical devices, on-body and through-body
wireless communication, millimeter-wave and MMIC devices, antenna and
EBG applications in mobile and wireless communication systems, theoretical
methods, and lens and focal-plane-array antennas for radio astronomy.
Prof. Esselle has been invited to serve as an International Expert/Research
Grant Assessor by several nationwide research funding bodies overseas including The Netherlands, Canada, Finland, Hong Kong, Georgia, and Chile. He
served in all Macquarie University HDR-related committees at the highest
level. In addition to the large number of invited conference speeches he has
given, he has been an invited keynote speaker of IEEE workshops held in
Australia and overseas. He has provided expert assistance to more than a dozen
companies including Intel, Hewlett Packard Laboratory (USA), Cisco Systems
(USA), Cochlear, Optus, Locata (USA)/QX Corporation, Silicon Controls,
ResMed, FundEd and Katherine-Werke (Germany). He is a Guest Editor
of IEEE Access and an Associate Editor of IET Microwave, Antennas and
Propagation. In 2014, he was elected to the IEEE Antennas and Propagation
Society Administrative Committee for 20152017. He has served in technical
program committees or international committees for many international conferences. He is the Technical Program Committee Co-Chair of ISAP 2015,
APMC 2011 and TENCON 2013 and the Publicity Chair of IWAT 2014 and
APMC 2000. He is the Vice-Chair of IEEE New South Wales (NSW) Section
(2014, 2015), past Chair and current Vice-Chair of the IEEE NSW MTT/AP
Joint Chapter, Counsellor of the IEEE Student Branch at Macquarie University,
Advisor of IEEE MTT Chapter in Macquarie University, the Foundation Editorin-Chief of MQEC, and the past Chair of the Educational Committee of the
IEEE NSW. He was the recipient of the 2012 Best Published Paper Award in
Electronic and Telecommunication Engineering from IESL NSW Chapter, the
2011 Outstanding Branch Counsellor Award from IEEE headquarters (USA),
the 2009 Vice Chancellors Award for Excellence in Higher Degree Research
Supervision, and the 2004 Inaugural Innovation Award for best invention
disclosure.

AFZAL et al.: DIELECTRIC PCSs FOR ERAs

Basit A. Zeb (S11M14) received the B.S. degree

in electrical engineering (Hons.) from the University
of Engineering and Technology, Lahore, Pakistan,
in 2001, the M.S. degree in telecommunications
from the Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby,
Denmark, in 2005, and the Ph.D. degree in electronic
engineering from Macquarie University, Sydney,
Australia, in 2014.
From 2005 to 2008, he was a Research and
Development Engineer with Maritime Technologies
Complex, Islamabad, Pakistan. From 2008 to 2010,
he was a Senior Lecturer with the Department of Electrical Engineering,
Air University, Islamabad, Pakistan. Currently, he is a Research Associate
with the Centre for Electromagnetic and Antenna Engineering (CELANE),
Macquarie University, Sydney, N.S.W., Australia. His research interests include
the development of multifrequency and wideband FabryPerot cavity antennas,
electromagnetic phase-shifting structures, frequency-selective surfaces, and
similar metamaterials for microwave and millimeter-wave antenna applications.
Dr. Basit was the recipient of the Best Student Paper Award at 2011
12th Australian Symposium on Antennas, the Imperial College Press Prize,
Student Paper Competition, Metamaterials 2011 Congress and the Honourable
Mention, Student Paper Competition in 2012 IEEE AP-S International
Symposium.

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